Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

It is the only source of entertainment we will have in the years ahead because we will not be able to afford anything else. We will be strumming a lot of guitars. Unfortunately this Government has been the equivalent of a one stroke banjo player for the last decade as it feasted on the surplus and did not put anything away for a rainy day. Why did it not say it would introduce a tax rate of 51% or 52%? In effect that is what we have here.

I know Deputy Power well. He is a decent respectable face of Fianna Fáil and I would never doubt his honour. Last night I drove home and it was a very bad winter's night. I thought it was a gloomy dark day for Ireland as the realisation slowly begins to dawn on the public. Fianna Fáil and its partners will suffer for it in the time ahead, as will the public. In inflicting pain yesterday there was an opportunity to try and give some hope but none was given.

I listened to the Taoiseach's great speech at the chamber of commerce dinner in Dublin and it mentioned jobs, jobs, jobs. We have realised the most important thing at the moment is to try and keep people in jobs and get people into jobs. There is nothing in this budget which will do that. It is a tax and spend budget. It is reminiscent of what happened in the 1980s in this country when we made the mistake of taxing and spending. That is what we are doing here.

A tax package comprising 60% of its proposals was produced by the Government. Fine Gael produced an alternative programme incorporating a tax package of 32%. There is no stimulus package. What is in this budget for an employer? Why did the Government not decide to put a moratorium on employer PRSI for any new employee taken on between now and the end of the year? It is a simple measure.

Deputy Mitchell mentioned VAT. The Minister for Finance said a short time ago he made an error in increasing VAT. Why did we not reduce it? Fine Gael had a proposal to reduce the lower VAT rate of 13.5% to 10%. There are some 30,000 or 40,000 houses not sold and it is to be hoped that when banks start lending again people will have access to loans. It would act as a kick-start to get those houses off the market.

An issue I have come across in recent months is that businesses who took on students to work are not now doing so. We will have a generation of students who will be unable to get summer jobs. We should have looked at doing something about the minimum wage paid to students and perhaps lift the barrier from 18 to 20 years of age.

I would like to have seen the Minister for Finance discuss services yesterday. If I went to avail of a professional service tomorrow and discovered my bill was 20% less than it was last week I would say we are all cutting our cloth. However, there is a section of our society that has not cut its cloth. The Minister spent a lot of time discussing the optics of Oireachtas reform, most of which I agreed with and was required. However there was nothing to deal with the spin doctors and vast array of staff at the disposal of Ministers. That issue needs to be addressed.

The Road Safety Authority at 4.15 p.m. yesterday, when the Minister for Finance or Deputy Bruton was speaking in the Dáil, issued a statement that the cost of the driving test was increasing from €38 to €75, an increase of almost 100%. That was a cynical exercise. Why is it increasing at a time of deflation? I am sure its CEO, an honourable man, will argue Government has perhaps withdrawn a grant it got in the past and he had to sanction an increase in the fee accordingly. It is a cynical exercise which does not restore confidence in the establishment.

There are two issues in my own area. The €100 million in overseas aid is a soft target in many respects. The more vulnerable have suffered. I would like to see the situation evolve and perhaps people who are unemployed could be seconded to aid agencies to do work and use the money in a productive manner. Many aid agencies will be against it but it should be considered as a pilot scheme. I hope the Minister will spell out the implications of the budget, if any, for funding for North-South bodies. Many of them are waiting to hear this.

The Leas-Cheann Comhairle will be familiar with Arklow as he drives past it, and I am glad the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government is here to hear this. I was first elected to the Dáil, as was the Minister, in 1997. At the time the Arklow sewerage scheme was high on the agenda. Twelve years later, it has gone to the High Court, the Supreme Court and the European Commission, and back and forth across the Irish Sea, St. George's Channel and wherever else. I would love the Minister to give a commitment to consider, as a case study, what has happened here. We talk about the rights of individuals, but when they can suppress the common good for a long period there is something radically wrong with our system. This needs to be addressed.

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